A new report published in The Independent this Thursday read: “Saudi Arabia turns on Lebanon for its unfaithfulness and lack of gratitude after decades of largesse.” One of Saudi Arabia’s staunchest allies in the Levant was most dramatically rebuked by Riyadh as officials announced they would not in fact foot Beirut’s military bill.

In the words of Robert Fisk: “After pouring billions into rebuilding the country following successive Israeli invasions and air raids, the Saudis find that they cannot prevent the Shia from expressing their fury at Riyadh.” Here is this new Saudi conundrum – as pointed by Mr Fisk Riyadh’s influence in Lebanon has been somewhat proportional to its willingness to subsidize Beirut’s political lifestyle, propping and sustaining officials to better co-opt them to the kingdom’s will … only that was counting without Hezbollah.

A resistance movement organized under the leadership of Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah has grown over the years into a political juggernaut – an institution onto itself, a power to be reckoned with as it came to represent both national pride and resistance against foreign aggression. More troubling still to Saudi Arabia, Hezbollah has been the only power in Lebanon to have successfully rallied around its flag both Muslims and Christians, when all Riyadh could manage was sectarian fragmentation.

“Riyadh made a tactical mistake in Lebanon in that it failed to recognize the ethno-sectarian make-up of the country. Lebanon is a religious melting pot, and communities have no interest in fighting each other over religious semantic … Lebanon is a secular society. And so Riyadh’s narrative of division has fallen mostly onto deaf ears, safe maybe from those Sunni enclaves in the North,” explains Allyson Krump, an expert on Saudi Arabia.

She added: “Rather than adapt to moving dynamics Riyadh has stuck to its political guns, oblivious to Hezbollah’s rise in popularity. Hezbollah represents for millions of Lebanese national independence, while Saudi Arabia is very much understood as an imperialistic power.”

But what prompted the kingdom to so publicly smite Lebanon?

To cut down Hezbollah resistance movement back to size Saudi Arabia has used the only weapon left at its disposal: slander and political manipulation.

After repeatedly promising to spend £3.2bn on new French weapons for the well-trained but hopelessly under-armed Lebanese army, Saudi Arabia has suddenly declined to fund the project – which was eagerly supported by the US and, for greedier reasons, by Paris. Along with other Gulf states, Riyadh has told its citizens not to visit Lebanon or – if they are already there – to leave. Saudi Airlines is supposedly going to halt all flights to Beirut. Lebanon, according to the Saudis, is a centre of “terror”.

The chronology of this new political crisis went as follow: on February 19th Saudi Arabia said it had suspended $4 billion in funding for the French and Americans to train and equip the Lebanese army and security forces. Ostensibly the kingdom objects to Hezbollah, and Iran’s perceived influence, which they see as exemplified by Lebanon’s failure to condemn an attack in January on the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Saudi Arabia then warned its citizens against travelling to the tiny country, and accused Hezbollah of smuggling drugs into the kingdom and sending mercenaries to Yemen and Syria. On March 2nd the six-member Gulf Co-operation Council designated Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.”

In its ever-expanding paranoia against Iran, Riyadh has turned Lebanon into a new proxy – threatening to open a new theatre at the heart of the Levant, at a time when Terror has exploited and thrived on political instability.

Rather than look at Hezbollah as the expression of Lebanon’s national will, Saudi Arabia chose instead to see a contender to its will, whose religious denomination automatically makes it fall under Shia Iran’s sphere of influence. “Saudi Arabia suffers from a classic case of political narcissism … since it defines itself according to a rigid religious paradigm, the kingdom cannot comprehend that others do not,” explained Krump.

“Hezbollah might be a Shia organization at its core but it does not carry a Shia-only agenda. Hezbollah speaks for Lebanon in its resistance. And while it has enjoyed Iran’s political support, it does not mean that Tehran ambitions to turn Lebanon into a satellite state,” she added.

Hassan Saleh, an independent researcher based in Belgium believes that Riyadh’s move to label Hezbollah a terror organization is an admission of Riyadh’s growing weakness in the Middle East. “Riyadh is losing its grip on politics, and so it is reverting to slander, and propaganda. To say that Hezbollah is a terror organization when it has been so potent in its fight against terror in Syria is dangerously counter-productive. Terror labelling here is being used as a political weapon.”

Of course Lebanon is NOT a centre of terror – this is the political manipulation. This is the narrative Saudi Arabia is looking to weave, to better deflect from its own terrorism, and its own guilt; while at the same time preparing for the further demonization of an enemy it can no longer control.

Saudi Arabia it appears has overextended itself – from its adventure in Yemen, to its attempt to spread Wahhabism across Europe and Asia through networks of schools and religious institutions, and of course its funding of Western friendships, could it be the kingdom is running out of breath …and money?

“For all their wealth, al-Saud royals lack political vision and flexibility – they have failed in their arrogance to realise that loyalties can never be bought if they are to last. They need instead to be given through cooperation, and collaboration,” emphasized Saleh.

Saudi Arabia’s moves against Lebanon seem amateurish. Even if the Lebanese parties wanted to, they could do little to diminish the role of Hezbollah, which acts as a state within the state and also dominates the government. “Saudi Arabia sometimes acts with bombast and violence that makes it look like the Donald Trump of the Arab world,” says Rami Khouri of the American University of Beirut.

A country already tittering on the verge of an economic and institutional precipice, Lebanon stands to be dangerously rocked should Riyadh decide to throw a spanner in the work, putting the entire region at risk.

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